An Unexpected Detour

At the Canyon overlook

            Phil and I recently took a trip to New Mexico and Arizona. It was a vacation trip with no other purpose than to enjoy the scenery and each other’s company.  We got out there just as the Covid19 pandemic was beginning to take off, and after our eight days of travel, we made it home safely. We arrived home with a sigh of relief that we didn’t end up quarantined somewhere along the way, and that we made it through the flights and airports before everything got too bad.

            I had been to Albuquerque once but nowhere else in the region.  Phil had made this trip before with a group of history teachers, but he was happy to take me to see the sights I had missed.  I was especially looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. It did not disappoint; sunset on the rim was beautiful.

            We had planned a circular route from Albuquerque with stops in Flagstaff, Arizona, and nights in Farmington, Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico.  In addition to the Grand Canyon we planned to see Monument Valley, Four Corners, the Painted Desert and all the arts and crafts Taos and Santa Fe had to offer. But isn’t it always the unplanned parts of the trip that ends up being the most memorable?

            We arrived in Flagstaff after dark and knew we had a short trip up to the Grand Canyon the next morning, so I raided the brochure rack in our hotel lobby to see what Flagstaff had to offer.  One brochure touted Walnut Canyon National Monument, an ancient Native American cliff dwelling site.  Our preliminary plan had been to visit Mesa Verde in Colorado, but it was closed for the winter.  Walnut Canyon looked like a suitable substitute, so we decided to add it to our agenda the next morning.

            When we first arrived at the visitors’ center, we noticed a steady stream of young park workers wearing special backpacks designed for carrying five-gallon buckets.  They were hauling debris, consisting of rocks and concrete, from a section of the trail that led to the ruins.  Each worker must have been carrying thirty to forty extra pounds on each trip out of the canyon.  I’m sure they were thankful that the morning was cool and crisp, and that the brunt of their labor would end before the worst heat of the day.  I heard one girl say that she had made six trips up and down the day before.  That would be quite a workout since the trail descended 185 feet.

            After a short stop in the visitor’s center, which sat on an overlook at the rim of the canyon, we started down the Island Trail. As you descend the 240 steps, you travel through several different plant life zones, which are miniature versions of the zones spanning the West from Mexico to Canada, according to the official brochure.  It is unique to have such a microcosm within the twenty miles the canyon covers and its 400-foot depth.  We observed the yucca and prickly pear cactus at the rim, forests of fir, juniper and ponderosa pine as we descended, and we could look down to the canyon’s bottomlands where box elder and the namesake black walnuts grow. 

            The Island Trail leveled off and took us on a loop around the island (this island is not surrounded by water, but by air) where we could observe the homes built by a primitive people called the Sinagua (Spanish for “people with no water”).  They used natural recesses in the canyon walls, formed by flowing water that eroded softer rock layers.  Homes had several rooms, and walls built and plastered by the women provided protection from the elements.  Different parts of the canyon were inhabited during the changing seasons to provide heat or cooling, depending on what was needed.

            It was fascinating to take a step back to ancient times by walking the trail, but Phil and I were also struck by the more recent history that made our time travel possible.  During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed men to live in a camp and construct that trail with its 240 steps.  Most of the men in the Mount Elden camp were from Pennsylvania and earned a dollar a day.  The pay wasn’t much, but they got three meals a day and gained valuable work skills as they labored in the camp.

            Travelling down those steps and then hauling ourselves back up was quite a chore.  As we walked along, Phil reminded me of a passage from a book he loves, Boundary Waters,by Paul Gruchow.  Gruchow was writing about having the same experience we were having, walking a trail built by the CCC with a friend.

“You know there’s hardly a place in Minnesota that doesn’t still benefit from some Depression-era public works project,” I say.  “Dams, roads, sidewalks, picnic shelters, swimming beaches, buildings, rip-rapped lakeshores and river banks—it’s really an incredible legacy.”

“It’s amazing what we could afford when we didn’t have any money,” John said.  “This staircase in the middle of a wilderness, for one thing.”

“We’re having the longest economic expansion in our history, and volunteers have to keep this trail open because there’s no public money to do it.”

“And back home we’re laying off teachers and complaining about welfare moms and reducing hours at the public library.  It’s hard to be rich, I guess.”

During the height of the Depression, unemployment was twenty-five percent. We’re looking at those kinds of numbers again, coming out of this pandemic. It will take courageous leadership to steer us through the hard days ahead, but we may find some of our finest moments in the wake of these hardships. Maybe the legacy this crisis leaves behind will equal and even exceed the monuments left us by the workers of the CCC. 

Our trip to the Southwest took us to some famous sites along well-traveled roads, but it was the unplanned stop at a little known national monument that was the unexpected highlight of the trip. 

Phil in one of the rooms

The Island Trail

Some of the 240 steps

You can see parts of the Island Trail we walked
that encircles the island.

Trail marker about the CCC

National Poetry Month

It's beginning again.  For the third year in a row I am participating in Napowrimo (National Poetry Writing Month) by writing a poem a day.  Many of them will show up here.  The early bird prompt is to write a poem about birds.  So here's my first attempt.

Tail Feathers

 I saw a heron fly off from the pond today.

Truth be told 

I heard the whoosh of its wings

and caught sight of its tail feathers 

before it was obscured by the trees 

that lined the open space.

This is the way we see most wild things—

Indistinct,

Blurry.

Sometimes the wild things

in my heart are just as hard to observe.

I think I am on the trail,

close to Hope,

the little bird that keeps so many warm*,

nearing Dreams,

the raptor that lifts to new heights.

But then, with a whoosh

and a flap of the wings,

they are out of sight,

leaving behind a longing,

a hope of another encounter,

another brush with mystery.

______________________________________

This poem was inspired by an essay in Boundary Waters by Paul Gruchow.

This line comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Guest Post by Phil Kiper: How Did We Get Here?

How Did We Get Here?

I was looking at posts from my Facebook friends a few weeks ago when I came upon a post from one of my former students, a very nice young lady.  She didn’t write the post but had simply shared it.  The post contained a picture of a man standing beside a very large tree that he had just felled.  The butt end of the tree had a vibrant red color showing along some of the rings of the tree.  The author of the post was explaining that the tree was a dogwood tree and that the tree was “bleeding” to give testimony that Jesus had been crucified on a dogwood tree.  The author alleged that at the time of Jesus, the dogwood tree was a much larger tree, and that after the crucifixion, God had cursed the tree, causing it to be much smaller and twisted in such a manner as to not allow for it to ever again be used as a tool for crucifixion.

I have heard this legend before but often only in relation to the beautiful flower of the dogwood, which, when in bloom, has four petals with dark spots resembling a cross. This story is a Christian legend of unknown origin, but like all legends and stories, they have their place in our culture and can serve as a moment of reflection or even inspiration for some.  

I have no interest in debating any legend or story and don’t fault others for enjoying them; however, the Facebook post picture, noted above, alleged to be of a bleeding dogwood tree.  The problem for me as an avid woodturner is that the picture wasn’t a dogwood at all, but a box elder tree.  Now I never comment about much of anything on Facebook, but I really thought that my observation and experience might be an aid to the author of the bleeding dogwood tree post.  I really was trying to save the author and all of his followers from praising God for a picture of a lowly box elder tree which I doubt had even had the distinction of being cursed by the God of the universe for the purpose of a worship aid of dubious origin.

What happened is that as I was slowly typing my observation of the non-bleeding dogwood tree, the social media crowd had gotten into a big debate over the legend of the bleeding dogwood.  When I entered the fray with my box elder observation, the blood was already in the water, and I, apparently, was fresh meat.  My Christian faith was questioned as well as my intellect, my love of God and country, and my own personal family tree.  I didn’t add any further comments, but this went on for a couple of hours.

How did we get here?  How is it possible for people of faith to argue over a legend which certainly doesn’t exists anywhere in the Bible and vehemently defend the picture of a tree which is blatantly wrong in its identification?  How is it possible for non-believers to get all excited about Christians who, though strong in faith, are perhaps poor arborists?  I wish both groups the best of luck, but I will remain out of the debate.  The next time I see a picture of any misidentified tree, cursed or not cursed by God, I will remain silent.  Both groups are the lesser for the loss of me and others who may have factual information but have been bullied out of the forum.

As for the original picture of the bleeding dogwood tree, which was, of course, a box elder, it is a pretty interesting story.  Box elder trees, members of the maple family, are often infested by ambrosia beetles when they begin to age and become distressed.  The beetles excavate a tunnel in the tree where they release spores of fungal symbiont.  These fungal spores attack the tree by spreading up and down the sap rings of the tree.  For reasons unknown to me, this fungus in box elders creates a beautiful coral red dye that runs up and down the sap rings of the tree.  These ambrosia beetles attack other trees, creating fungal colors which are mostly dark but often beautiful.  I quickly recognized the tree in the Facebook post because I have turned many bowls and vases out of the wood of these trees.  Dogwood is also a beautiful wood, but the wood is very hard.  Because of this, ambrosia beetles do not often attack dogwoods.  The wood from the dogwood tree is perfect for the handles of tools and other objects that require dense, close grained wood.

As for beetles, there are more than 400,000 species of beetles in the world.  They represent 40% of all the insects in the world and 25% of all known animal life forms.  A famous biologist, J.B.S Haldane, when asked by a reporter, “What, if anything, have you learned of the nature of God?”  He replied, “He is inordinately fond of beetles.”

Since my retirement, I have had much more time to reflect on life and the existence and nature of God.  I spend a great deal of time by myself in nature just quietly observing.  If you asked me what I have learned of the nature of God, I would say that He is inordinately fond of order.  Maybe my Facebook friends should suspend arguments about legends and quietly contemplate the order of our natural world.  As for me, I don’t need divinely altered bleeding dogwoods. The simple and natural handiwork of the ambrosia beetle is enough.

Some pieces I made from box elder.

  

Guest Post by Phil Kiper: Coronado the Capitalist

Coronado the Capitalist

I have always thought of myself as a capitalist, but a few days ago I stood in the New Mexico Museum of History in Sante Fe and read a small plaque describing the invasion of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado into what is now New Mexico and Arizona in 1540.  He began in Mexico with 350 soldiers along with 1000 or so Mexican indians who were intimidated or coerced into joining him on his quest. He headed north in search of the mythical “Seven Cities of Gold”.  His expedition lasted two years, covered some 5000 miles, and cost hundreds of Native American and Spanish lives.  He found no gold and returned to Mexico City in disgrace.  Native peoples of New Mexico came to expect violence in future encounters. 

He did not return in disgrace because of the incredible violence he perpetrated on native peoples whom he slaughtered and often tortured for information about the fictitious cities of gold.  He returned in disgrace because he did not return capital (gold) for the expenditures of his investors.  No one questioned the atrocities.  He failed because he did not deliver expected financial gains.  His expedition was a textbook capitalist venture.  

I was taught that it is always risk versus reward in capitalism.  That is true, but there is a third element, humanity.  There is often a severe human price to pay for financial gain.  History has recorded scores of these.  Coronado lived 500 years ago, but there is still a human price to pay for the return of capital.

If you think these things surely must not happen in today’s modern age, you should think again.  If you want to learn of one recent example, just watch the Netflix series, “Dirty Money.”  The episode, “The Wagon Wheel”  exposes the horrid abuses of Wells Fargo Bank leading up to their exposure by whistleblowers and a free American press in 2016.  Their practice of “cross selling” set unrealistic quotas on low level employees and put huge pressure on managers to sell an impossible number of products or face losing their jobs.  As a result of this, employees signed clients up for multiple products they did not request and had no reason to need.  They specifically preyed on elderly adults, non-english speaking Americans, and college students.  When these sources ran out, they just made up random social security numbers and assigned numerous products to each.  

In reality, it was costing the company money, but investors loved the growth, and stock prices flourished. When the truth finally surfaced, the CEO, John Stumpf, resigned, not fired, and received a “golden parachute” retirement package of $115 million.  Congress conducted hearings and leveled fines, the last of which was $1 billion.  That must have been tough on Wells Fargo.  Just recently Congress gave Americans a huge tax cut which helped few middle and lower income Americans but allowed Wells Fargo to recoup their losses, plus a few billion, with plenty of money left over to buy back their stock at a reduced price due to their transgressions.

I guess I am still a capitalist.  It is the best way to gain wealth for individuals willing to borrow or spend capital and take the risk of losing it all.  If they win, they often employ thousands of people and make the world a better place.  I am afraid that what is happening now is that employees in America are not being compensated fairly by their employers who are making huge gains in the value of their stock even when their companies are not profitable, see Amazon for example.

Capitalism must be checked and closely regulated by our representatives in government and our free press.  I am afraid the lessons of Coronado have not been learned.  If Coronado had some lawyers and had paid millions to the campaigns of the Spanish leaders, he could have spun his adventure, bumped up his stock prices and resigned with a “golden parachute” instead of in disgrace. What a loser!

Takeaways from Slow Church

In my last post I talked about the book Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison.  The values of Slow Church are laid out as a meal, in three courses:  Ethics, Ecology and Economy.  Here’s a quick look at each of the values.

1.  Terroir: This is the idea of being grounded in a place.

            “God,

            Shrink our territory,

            And narrow our boundaries

            That we might truly be a blessing to all.”

                        --Paul Sparks

2.  Stability:  Fidelity to people and place.

            “The power of stability, though, is the chance to get below the surface, to recognize patterns, to become more sensitive to the work God is doing all around us.”

3.  Patience:  Entering into the suffering of others

            “Patience means to enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us.”

4.  Wholeness:  Looking at people and things as a whole instead of fractured into parts.

            “Can I separate my own health from the rest of the world?  My own good nutrition from the poor nutrition of billions?  My longing for peace from the warring in the Middle East…or anywhere else at all?  In a universe where the lifting of the wings of a butterfly is felt across the galaxies, I cannot isolate myself, because my separation may add to the starvation and the anger and the violence.”

                        --Madeleine L’Engle

5.  Work:  Cooperating with God’s Reconciling Mission through our labor.

            “[The ideal work:] work that engages the whole person, often in collaboration with others, for the sake of the flourishing of the whole community.”  “Help people recognize and prefer good work over bad work.”

6.  Sabbath:  The Rhythm of Reconciliation

            “Sabbath observance requires a leap of faith, a firm confidence that the world will continue to operate benevolently for a day without human labor, that God is willing and able to provide enough for the good life.  Sabbath promises seven days of prosperity for six days fo work.”

                        --Richard H. Lowery

7.  Abundance:  The economy of creation

            “Scarcity impedes our imaginations, compelling us to conclude, ‘We could never do that.’”

“Scarcity often has the effect of blinding our churches to the abundant resources that God has provided for our life together.”

“The myth of scarcity is useful for subjugating peoples, and for helping the rich stay rich and the powerful stay powerful.”

            --Walter Brueggemann

8.  Gratitude:  Receiving the good gifts of God

            “Gratitude is how we practice recognizing the abundant gifts God has given us.   It’s how we praise God for those gifts.  And it is the energy that compels us to want to share those gifts.”

9.  Hospitality:  Generously Sharing God’s Abundance

            “For churches, one of the most transformative, and intimate, forms of generosity is hospitality: Sharing our homes, our tables and ourselves with others, particularly strangers.”

The final chapter of the book is called “Dinner Table Conversation as a Way of Being Church.” It focuses on the good work that can be done among members of a church through sharing a meal.  

“Christians spend too much time ‘deciding’ who can’t be included at the dinner party.  In contrast, we believe it’s our responsibility and privilege as followers of Jesus to add chairs to the table, not take them away.”

My biggest takeaway was just the idea that my little church here in my little town may be nailing this idea.  I am happy to be a part of a body of believers who practice lots of these values.

            

From Slow Food to Slow Church

Another book I read this summer was Slow Church by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison.  It was interesting to be reading this one alongside the Barbara Kingsolver book I talked about here.  The authors make the case that our fast food culture that values efficiency, predictability, calculability (measurable results), and control (or illusion of control) has leaked into, not just our food, but into all areas of our life including the church.  They make the case that the values of the Slow Food movement are values to be embraced in our churches.  The authors want us to "reimagine what it means to be communities of believers gathered and rooted in particular places at a particular time." (p.15)

Here are some quotes that I thought were helpful in understanding some of the tenets the authors were trying to present as an introduction to the idea of Slow Church:

Slow Church is a call for intentionality, an awareness of our mutual interdependence with all people and all creation, and an attentiveness to the world around us and the work God is doing in our very own neighborhoods. (p.16)

Slow food wasn’t started by farmers.  It was started by eaters who stood up and declared that they were no longer content to be passive consumers of industrialized food.  Thus, we think it’s appropriate that a lot of the energy in the early staged of the Slow Church conversation comes from non-specialists who are motivated by a love of God, a love for the body of Christ in the world, and a desire to be more than passive consumers of religious goods and services. We want more risk, beauty and wonder than can be experienced at a spiritual filling station.  We want some skin in the game.  (p.20)

            “Eating is an agricultural act,” Wendell Berry famously said, and Slow food views consumers as active participants in the production process.  Eaters who know where their food comes from, know how it got to their table and support local farmers become nothing less than co-producers. P.20

            Similarly, Slow Church is more than a consumerist experience.  It goes beyond just offering people a safe haven on Sunday morning from the storms of fast life.  Slow Church is a way of being authentically connected as co-producers to a Story that is as big as the planet (bigger) and as intimate as our own backyards. (p.20)

The primary work of slow church is not attracting people to our church buildings, but rather cultivating together the resurrection life of Christ, by deeply and selflessly loving our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, and even our enemies. (p.33)

[Slow church]…sees people not as in or out but as closer or further away from the center [which in this case is Christ]… In one of Wendell Berry’s short stories, the character Burley Coulter says, “The way we are, we are members of each other.  All of us.  Everything.  The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.” (p.34)

****************************

There are lots of other good ideas about church in this book and I will share more about this in future posts.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Over the summer I read a book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  In this book Kingsolver chronicles the year her family of four undertook the monumental task of eating only what they could raise or buy locally, in their county in rural Virginia.  This book has had a direct effect on me since I’ve been home from Canada.  I have been to the local stand across from Walmart on many occasions (which I never did before) and brought home some fresh produce, including some really outstanding peaches.  I even put several bags of these peaches in the freezer for making some pies later on. (One may show up at the next Poetry, Prose and Pie.)  I know these seem like small steps, but they represent a real shift in my thinking and desire to change.  For all you out there who have been doing this for years, Bravo!

So let me tell you a little more about this book.

Ms. Kingsolver and her family began the agricultural and gastronomical journey in late March, just as the first fruits of spring began to appear at the farmer’s markets in her area. She vividly describes the work they all put into selecting the seed varieties they will plant in their garden and the breeds of chickens and turkeys they will raise. 

The rest of the book tells the stories of the food they grow on their small farm, and the connections they make with those who raise the food they eat and grow the staple crops they will depend upon.  They even learn to make their own cheeses.  Kingsolver is an excellent storyteller, and her writing is witty and entertaining, even for someone like me, who has never been a foodie, or remotely interested in gardening of any type.

One of my favorite incidents from the book is Kingsolver’s description of their Thanksgiving dinner. They had a true cornucopia of their own foods; everything needed for the feast except one thing they couldn’t do without—cranberries.  The family decides that they are not going to be a slave to their ideals and go to grocery store to buy a bag of organic cranberries. She describes this bag as some alien that has landed in their kitchen, lying there seductively in its cellophane wrapper.  She thought all the members of the family went by and fondled it at some point.

There’s also a chapter on turkey sex which is very amusing and entertaining.  Since most turkeys grown on industrial farms are artificially inseminated, very few people ever get to see this event happen. She said, “Of course I watched.”

All of this is connected to a growing movement called the Slow Food Movement.  This movement is a reaction against the fast food culture in which we live.  The fast food culture is characterized by its values, which are efficiency, predictability, measurable results and control.  In contrast, the Slow Food Movement values relationships, relationships with others but also with the earth itself.  Slow Food enthusiasts want to know who is growing their food, want to know who is preparing their food, and want to spend leisurely times enjoying their food.

All this seems very idyllic, and for sure, it’s beyond my capabilities on a regular basis, but I want to try to add more of these ideas to my life.  I think it’s a journey worth going on, even if it’s only once in a while.

My friend Jane just told me that she got to have dinner with
Barbara Kingsolver once.  I am very jealous.